


Through Fields Where Sunlight Streams

by roseandheather



Category: Code Black (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-18
Updated: 2016-01-18
Packaged: 2018-05-14 16:42:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5750560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseandheather/pseuds/roseandheather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She may fall apart, but he'll put her back together. Neal and Christa, in the nebulous future where they've found each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Through Fields Where Sunlight Streams

"I'm so sorry."

Oh, God. He knows that voice.

It's the voice that says _I'm about to fall apart,_ it's the voice that says _I still can't take this,_ it's the voice that says _I need help now and I can't bear to ask for it._

"Doctor Leighton," Neal barks, and is gratified when Angus looks up from his paperwork in an instant.

"Doctor Hudson?"

"Cover for Doctor Lorenson," he says crisply, and flinches inside when he sees the blonde ponytail slipping through to the utility corridor. "Ten minutes, half an hour at most."

"Roger that," says Angus, without even blinking twice.

Neal nods crisply - in thanks or in despair he doesn't know - and takes off, only years of training stopping him from a run.

_Thank God we're only Code Yellow._

Then he sees her, arms wrapped around herself, slumped shaking against the wall, and everything else vanishes.

"Oh, God." His own heart is breaking for her, he can't stop it, and she looks up at the raw _pain_ in his voice. "Christa, I'm so sorry."

"Don't touch me." She flinches away from him, shakes her head fiercely, and he reaches out, half hurt, half confused. "Don't you dare touch me, Neal, if you do I'll fall apart."

"Then I'll _put you back together,_ " he says urgently, arms reaching out, trapping her against the wall. "That's what we do, Christa, isn't it?"

"I can't." Her voice trembles, and she's losing her fight against the tears. "Neal, I _can't - "_

"But you're going to anyway," he says, as gently as he can. "Because maybe it won't happen now, maybe it won't happen tonight, but it _will_ happen, Christy. We both know that. So darling, _let me help you._ "

Maybe it's the nickname, maybe it's the endearment; maybe it's both, or neither. He doesn't know, and he doesn't care, because Christa locks her arms around his neck, buries her face in his shoulder, and bursts into tears.

He wraps around her on instinct, hiding her between him and the wall, putting himself between her breakdown and any onlookers. One arm gripping her waist, the other cradling the back of her head, he holds her to him and just lets her cry.

He finds himself humming, an old Hindustani lullaby passed down through generations in his mother's family, one of the few fragments of India his mother had held on to. He only half remembers the words, the tune even less, but Christa doesn't seem to care; with every note, every measure, she sags a little more fully against him, arms loosening until they're no longer locked and she's just clinging softly.

Tentatively, he brings the hand around her waist up to rub her back. She sighs, melting against him, and if this were any other situation...

But it's not, so he lets her pull away at last, then reaches out to wick the tears on her cheeks away with his thumb.

"Better?"

"Yeah," she whispers, and smiles, a small smile but true. "Neal - "

"Shush," he says, and puts a finger to her lips. "Always, darling. Always."

She hugs him fiercely for a moment and he kisses her, swiftly, because he can't help himself. She smiles one more time and then she is gone, back to the ER, back to Code Yellow, back to blood and saline and needles and too much heartbreak.

When he, too, comes back through the doors she is bent over the grieving mother, one hand on her shoulder, murmuring words he cannot hear - of comfort, of sympathy, of shared sorrow. But somehow through all of that, she looks up across the room at him, and their eyes meet, just for a moment.

'I love you,' he mouths, not saying the words but shaping them all the same, and even from there sees her blue eyes brighten.

'I love you too,' she replies, and he smiles, soft and just a little goofy, before their gaze breaks and the rest of the world comes back in.

They have work to do.


End file.
